


Public Finance and Government Spending

by zarrati



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Oral Sex, Sexual Content, ash's birthday fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-19
Updated: 2016-01-19
Packaged: 2018-05-15 00:18:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5764504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zarrati/pseuds/zarrati
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All Ben Wyatt wanted to do was get through his senior year of college in one piece and prove that he was more than just a disgraced former mayor. He never expected that one class, one project, or one girl would change his life forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Public Finance and Government Spending

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ashisfriendly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashisfriendly/gifts).



> HAPPY BIRTHDAY ASH! Please accept this humble, hastily written, poorly wrapped gift of a cliche college AU filled with tropes, some angst, and some kissing as a small token of my appreciation for your existence. You are truly a rainbow-infused space unicorn.

Ben runs into the classroom with barely a second to spare. That’s what he gets for picking an eight o'clock class on the part of campus that’s the farthest from his dorm. He quickly scans the room for an open desk and only finds one in the first row.

He sighs as he brushes past the rest of his classmates and takes a seat just as the professor starts giving out the syllabus. A stack of papers gets handed to him from the blonde girl sitting on his right, and he smells the strong scent of vanilla. She squints her eyes like she’s studying him before giving him a quick smile.

He half smiles back before taking a paper and passing the rest along.

He pulls out his pen and notebook, and glances again at the desk beside his. That same blonde girl has a binder that already seems to have notes in it despite being labeled specifically for this class, with color coded tabs named after chapters in their textbook.

He hasn’t even _bought_ the book yet.

She also has a small bag filled to the brim with markers and highlighters of every color, and--are those _gel_ pens?

He looks back down at his own supplies, a leftover notebook from a class last year that he ended up dropping and a pen he found at the bottom of his bookbag. He's a senior now, and the novelty of school supply shopping has long lost its appeal.

“Good morning, everyone,” their professor says. “I’m Dr. Iaresco and welcome to Public Finance and Government Spending. As it says in your syllabus, a part of your grade will be made up by homework and class participation, another part from tests, and the rest from your project. For that, you’ll be paired with a partner and given a fictional city or town with its own budget and subsequent financial issue or crisis. Your task will be to use your city's  resources and knowledge that you learn in class to attempt to properly balance your city’s budget and find ways to fix whatever issue you’ve been given. Obviously, a lot of your solutions will be purely hypothetical since there is no real way to determine their success. I will be grading based on their viability and your overall ideas. We’ll discuss the specifics in the next few weeks after I assign you your partners and finalize the scenarios.”

Ben sighs as the professor rambles on about the structure of the rest of the class and the different topics they’ll be covering, still staring at the section about the project. He knows it shouldn’t bother him this much. That was the whole point of going into accounting and taking this class to begin with. To prove that he was able to do this again. To prove that he won’t make those same mistakes.

So while this assignment might encompass every single insecurity he has about how he had failed so badly with Ice Town, it’ll also be a way to prove himself, show that he can do the right thing even if it’s just on paper.

The girl next to him is still scribbling furiously in her binder, and he honestly has no idea what she could possibly be taking notes on, but she’s obviously very focused--and happy. Apparently the idea of working on this project is the best news she’s heard all day.

He starts doodling in the margins of his syllabus and gets another whiff of vanilla.

~~~~~

He learns his lesson for the next class and arrives early. There are only a few students there, so he technically could have his pick of seats, but that same girl is sitting up front, and for some unknown reason, he takes the desk next to her.

She smiles up at him as he sits, her binder and bag of writing utensils already spread out on her desk, and she's far too energized and friendly for this early in the morning.

As if to prove his point, she catches his eye again and holds out her hand. “Hi, I’m Leslie. I figured that since we’ll probably be neighbors for the rest of the semester, we might as well be on a first name basis, right?”

“Uhm, yeah.” He shakes her hand and tries not to visibly show how surprised he is by her strong grip. And damn, he’s really starting to like vanilla. “Hi, I’m Ben.”

“Nice to meet you, Ben. So what are you taking this class for?”

“Oh, uh, I’m an accounting major. My goal is to work for the government. You know, budget analysis and stuff like that. Maybe be a budget specialist or something. Figured this class would be useful. What about you?”

“I’m a history major, but I want to work for the government, too. Start small and local and then work my way up and become president.”

He laughs until he realizes she’s not joking. “Oh, sorry. It’s just...most people say that but don’t really mean it.”

“Well, I mean it.”

“Then that’s awesome. Are you graduating soon?”

“Yup, this year. I’m a senior. I’ve got an internship lined up in my hometown’s Parks and Rec department that will hopefully turn into a full-time job after the summer is over. You?”

“I’m a senior, too. No prospects lined up yet, but I’m working on it.”

“Yeah, finding jobs is hard. Thankfully, my mom works for the education department in Pawnee--that’s my hometown-- and so I was able to make some connections at City Hall. I’ve been volunteering at the Parks Department for years, so it wasn’t all that hard.”

“Wow, that’s awesome. I...I, uh, don’t really have those kind of connections, and I’m not all that interested in going back home to work. I was thinking of maybe staying here in Indiana and seeing what’s available.”

“That’s great! You should totally do it. Indiana is wonderful and I love it. If you stay, you _have_ to come visit Pawnee. It’s the best city in the state, quite possibly the world.”

He grins again as he takes out his notebook. “Well, I guess I’ll have to check it out sometime.”

She nods and keeps her eyes wide in excitement as the professor walks in and takes his spot in the front of the classroom. “Yes, you definitely should.”

They both turn to Dr. Iaresco after that, but for some reason, he keeps smiling.

~~~~~

He and Leslie get along fairly well the first few weeks. He manages to lose his only pen and she puts one on his desk before he can even ask for a spare. He tells himself that his coming early has nothing to do with talking to her before class, but that doesn’t stop her from telling him all about the mini horse that’s printed on her t-shirt...or him from pretending to care.

She tells him about Pawnee, about _her_ parks and all of the volunteer work she’s been doing there. He learns that she has a best friend named Ann who’s in the nursing program here, that her favorite food is waffles with tons of whipped cream, and apparently has that much energy even though she doesn’t sleep.

She asks where he’s from, but he doesn’t mention Partridge by name, only that his parents live in a small town in Minnesota, and he’s never eager to go home to visit.

One day she brings in a cookie for breakfast and even though he teases her about eating too much sugar, he takes half of it when she offers.

He definitely could have done worse as a desk neighbor. She doesn’t smell bad and she’s actually kinda cute when he thinks about it--and he denies just how much he thinks about it.

He also pretends that he doesn’t go out of his way to be funny just so he can hear her cackle. And that’s what it is, not really a laugh, but an endearing little cackle that shouldn't be nice, but it is.

And his heart jumps almost every time he hears it.

~~~~~

“Now, within every government, the departments and services provided by said government usually have a rank, or set priority,” Dr. Iaresco drones on. “Essential versus non-essential. The lower, or less essential it is, usually means less funds allotted to that department or service. In times of financial crisis, these are usually the ones that are hit first--uh yes, Leslie.”

She puts down her hand and pinches her face. Ben can already tell she’s not happy and is about to let the entire class know why.

“Dr. Iaresco, why are things like Parks and Recreation so low on the priorities list? They provide much needed services to the local community and have to fight for every cent they can get as it is. I don’t see how it’s fair or right that things like sports or after school programs need to suffer.”

Ben can’t help it, he rolls his eyes and unfortunately, gets caught.

“Well, it seems like Mr. Wyatt has some thoughts on the matter.” Dr. Iaresco puts his hand out towards him. “Please, tell us what’s on your mind.”

Leslie’s entire head snaps towards him and her eyes narrow.

“The problem when dealing with issues like this is that every department has a bias and deems their services as more important or more essential. No one is saying that Parks and Recreation doesn’t provide good services to the city, but they’re ones that people can survive without. Things like education, transportation, or fire should take priority. Money to fund departments and projects doesn’t magically grow on trees. You have to think and be responsible. If a city is in a financial crisis, you have to decide what’s more important, making sure the schools stay open and the public sewers are working or some park.”

“ _S_ _ome_ park? Are you serious right now, Ben?” Leslie fires back, her eyes a dangerous icy blue. “There’s a lot more that goes on than that. These are services that people have come to count on. There are real people who work in those departments who have lives and families that can’t afford to lose their jobs because some government bureaucrat or _budget specialist_ swoops in and thinks he knows what’s best doesn’t mean he does.”

“And _sometimes_ the people that are in that department can’t see past their involvement and see the big picture. Everyone has to make sacrifices, and yeah, maybe some more than others, but unless you want a total economic collapse, you _have_ to make the tough choices. That department isn’t any more special than the others that are losing people. And if someone _can’t_ be fiscally responsible and accept those facts, then maybe they shouldn’t be working in government.”

“You’re a jerk.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said-”

“Okay,” Dr. Iaresco cuts in. “It appears that both Ben and Leslie have very strong feelings on the subject. Unfortunately we’re out of time today. We’ll look more into the topic next class.”

Leslie slams her binder closed and throws her pens and markers into her bag, all the while shooting daggers in Ben’s direction. She storms out of the room and Ben struggles to shove everything in his bag before chasing after her.

“Leslie, wait up!” He runs into several other students before finally catching up to her. “Hey, would you just stop for one second.”

She turns around and crosses her arms. “What? What could you possibly have to say to me after that? Unless it’s to apologize and admit that you were wrong, I don’t want to talk to you.”

He just stares at her. “Wait, are you seriously mad at me?”

“Of course I’m mad at you! How could you say those things, Ben? Do you really mean all that?”

“Well, yeah, in a way. I mean you have to think like that if you don’t want to completely bankrupt your town. In the situations that we were talking about, the city is already on its way to a financial disaster. You have to make tough choices to save money where you can. Once the city get’s back on its feet, then you can look into the less essential departments again, but-”

“Do you really think parks isn’t important? That all it does isn’t needed or necessary?”

He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “Look, Leslie, I know you have a personal investment in that department, but you just need to understand that those are luxuries _not_ necessities.”

Her face only gets more pinched. “So is that what you want to do with your life? Swoop into a town and cut their budgets with...with a machete or something. Slice down all of the good work people have done. _Fire_ the people that have done it?”

“I want to help solve those problems. And if that’s what it takes to do it, so be it.”

“Then I was right. You _are_ a jerk. Goodbye, Ben.”

He’s left standing there in complete shock as Leslie turns her back and walks away.

~~~~~

The next class, he’s tempted to find a new seat, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t want to be “that guy” who takes someone else’s spot this late in the semester. Plus, finding a new seat would be an admission that he’s somehow embarrassed or thinks he’s wrong. He’s not and he knows it and if Leslie didn’t agree with him, well that’s her problem. He isn’t going to find a new seat just to make her life easier.

She goes out of her way to ignore him when he sits down, and it’s a little petty and kind of childish, but if she’s going to ignore him, he can ignore her right back.

He isn’t sure how he can even tell the difference, but she’s writing her notes more forcefully than before, and her face hasn’t lost it’s angry scowl all class. It really shouldn’t bother him. He’s known her all of three weeks, but for some reason, it does.

He’s watching the clock just waiting to get the hell out of there when Dr. Iaresco announces that it’s time to start working on their projects and he’ll be assigning partners before everyone leaves.

Ben's tapping his pen--a new one he bought because he refused to ask Leslie for another one--on his notebook hoping that he gets assigned his partner soon so he can leave, when Dr. Iaresco says, “Ben and Leslie, you two will be working together.”

His head snaps up and his jaw drops, but before he can say anything, Leslie already voices a protest.

“What? No way. There’s no way I can work with someone like this. His solution to whatever problem we get will probably be to just fire everyone and relocate the town or something. I-”

“Ms. Knope,” Dr. Iaresco cuts in, “I understand that you and Mr. Wyatt have very different opinions on these matters, and that’s part of the reason why I paired you up. I believe that you both could learn something from one another and find a nice compromise. Also, in government, you’re going to have to work on these issues with people you don’t agree with. Consider this practice. Unless, of course, you want to fail the assignment.”

She mumbles a “no” and shoots another deadly glare in Ben’s direction.

“Any thoughts, Mr. Wyatt?” Dr. Iaresco asks.

He knows it’s a dick move, but he can’t help it. He grins widely and shakes his head. “Nope, not at all, professor. I think this will be an interesting collaboration.”

“Good. Now, all of you will be emailed your specific project information. The departments within your government, your city size, population, and various services already in place, a breakdown of the personnel in each department, your budget, and the subsequent crisis.You’ll have the rest of the semester to work on the projects, but I don’t advise that you procrastinate. I will be setting aside some time in class to work, but you will definitely need to work with your partners outside of normal class time. You’re dismissed.”

She slams her binder closed and leaves without another word.

~~~~~

“Did you have a chance to look over the assignment,” he asks her a week later after class before she has a chance to run off. She still hasn’t talked to him, but he knows they’ll have to eventually if they plan on passing this class.

“Yes,” she huffs as though talking to him has been the biggest inconvenience of her day. “Of course I did. I read it the day he sent it out. I already have everything written and sorted out.”

“Of course you do. Why am I not surprised?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she snaps.

“Nothing! It was a compliment, actually. You’re always on top of stuff. That’s a good thing.”

She looks at him like she doesn’t believe him but leaves it alone.

He sighs. “Right. Well, I guess we should probably meet and talk everything over. Ideas and so on. Stuff like that.”

“Look,” she says, “I really don’t want to work with you on this. How about I just do the project for both of us and that way we both win. I don’t have to work with you and you don’t have to do any work at all.”

“What? No way. If I leave it up to you, you’ll make everything worse and completely bankrupt the town and we’ll fail.”

“And if you had your way, you’d fire everyone and the town will suck and no one will have anything left.”

“I’ll do what I have to do to make sure that the city gets back on its feet again. You have to remember that it’s so bad because the people of that government caused it. Our job is to make sure they can keep on existing and if we have to make harsh choices and decisions and fire some people and cut budgets, then that’s what we’ll do. Besides, even if that was the only way to fix everything, it’s not like it’s real. We can do whatever we want.”

“But it _could_ be real, Ben. Isn’t that the whole point of the assignment, to see what we’d do if faced with this exact situation? And I for one don’t want to treat this like something that isn’t real so we don’t have to care. These fake people have feelings, too.”

“The fake people in this fictional town have feelings?”

Maybe! You don’t know that they don’t.”

There's a steady pressure building behind his eyes and he pinches the bridge of his nose. “Look, I know you feel very strongly about this, but we need to work together here. Our grade depends on this, and if you refuse to cooperate or try to go behind my back and do this project yourself, I’ll just have to tell Dr. Iaresco.”

“Look, I know that by being my partner you hold my grade in your hands like a small bird, but that doesn’t change the fact that I think you’re an ass.”

He stares at her for a long while. It's a little surprising that he’s not upset by the fact that she just insulted him, but then again, he’s definitely been called a lot worse. If only he could just make her understand.

“When’s your next class?” he asks.

“What?”

“You’re next class. When is it?”

“Uhm, not until this afternoon. Why?”

“You wanna get a beer?”

Her eyes widen and she looks down at her watch. “It’s like barely ten in the morning.”

“Yeah, you look like you could use a beer.”

It's almost like she’s trying to decide whether he’s being friendly or intends to kill her, but she eventually shrugs.

“Okay, I guess.  But I’m texting Ann where we’re going in case you plan on murdering me or something so she’ll know I was with you last.”

He takes her to a small bar just off campus, and they sit on the tall stools sipping their beer.

The silence between them is thick and charged, but not in a good way, until she eventually clears her throat. “So, what, are you gonna try to get me drunk and see if you can talk me into giving in or something?”

He smiles and shakes his head. “No, nothing like that. I just figured we should talk about all of this and try to clear the air. Maybe both explain our sides a bit better and see where the other is coming from. I mean, there’s a reason that you feel so strongly about this, right?”

She looks away and starts peeling at the label on the bottle. “Look, I know this is just a project. I get that, but for me this is the best practice I’m going to get before I actually go out into the real world. My mom...she’s this government bigshot in education, and she’s always telling me the same things you are. That I need to be tough if I’m going to make it, that you have to sacrifice things like parks and programs. Don’t get me wrong, she’s my hero, but I kind of want to use this to prove her wrong, you know? That even if it’s on paper, I don’t have to do all of that for it to be successful. There are ways that I just haven’t thought of yet. Because one day, this _could_ be my government and my department, and I want to be ready for it.”

“I can understand that," he says with a not and takes another sip of his drink. "I’m coming from kind of the opposite spectrum. I know firsthand how dangerous irresponsible spending can. See, I--”

“You’re Benji Wyatt, impeached mayor of Partridge, Minnesota.”

He almost chokes and he wasn’t even drinking anything. “Wait, you knew?”

“Yeah. I knew the first day.”

“But, how? You didn’t even know my last name until the second week of class, and there’s got to be a million other people out there named Ben.”

“I recognized you. I followed your election pretty closely, and was super impressed and a little jealous when you won. I kind of stopped tracking it after that, you know with getting ready for college and everything, but when I saw you, I wondered what the heck you were doing here so I went home and looked you up on Alta Vista”

“So, you knew I was a disgraced former mayor, but you never once used that against me? You would have won any argument in class if you had done that.”

For the first time today, she doesn't look like she's wanting to rip his throat out. . “It didn’t seem fair. That would have been a low blow.”

He's having a hard time wrapping his brain around the fact that even though she hates his guts, she was still allowing him some dignity and chose not to embarrass him and reveal his secret to the entire class.

“Well, then you know why spending like that is dangerous. I thought I was doing something good, too, but all I did was bankrupt the town and ruin a lot of people’s lives. That’s why I want to do budget analysis. I want to prove to people that I’m responsible again. Run for office someday. And you do, too. You need to sometimes make tough decisions, Leslie. That’s how it works. You can’t please everybody. Trust me, you don’t want to end up like me.”

Then she says the one thing no one has ever said to him before. “Yeah, but at least you tried something.”

It shouldn’t matter because he tried and failed. Failed big time. But the fact that she even said that makes him smile.

He thinks that maybe, just maybe, they’ll be able to make this work.

~~~~~

They’re in the student lounge because Leslie refuses to go to the library for some reason pouring over the information Dr. Iaresco sent them and trying to work out the bare bones of the budget. Ben worked his spreadsheet magic--Leslie’s words, not his--and he was able to calculate the minimum cost each department needed to operate in their current state. What they are doing now is trying to compare that to how much money they have to work with and keep the town from going bankrupt.

While they no longer treat the other as an enemy, Ben wouldn’t call them friends either. It's still pretty early in the project doing the preliminary fund allocations. There’s still plenty of time to be at each other’s throats once they have to come up with the plan to preserve the budget.

But, for now, it seems to be working.

“Hey, do you have the numbers for public works, sewage, and the police department?” she asks.

He rifles through his pile of papers. “Uhm, yeah, here you go.”

“Great, thanks. Man, there is just so much...stuff to all this.”

“Yup, it’s not easy.”

“I can’t believe you actually want to do this as a job.”

“Well, someone has to, and by the end of it if I do my job right, their town will have money and function again.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

He types in the last few numbers into his spreadsheet. “Okay, so we’ve figured out the basic cost to operate as the government stands now, and I’ve compared it to the city’s current financial situation and projected those number for the coming year. It’s looking like we’ll have to cut spending for each department by almost 60% if we don’t want to declare bankruptcy.”

“No way. That much? Seriously?” She stands up and looks over his shoulder. “Shit, that’s a lot.”

“Yup. I think it’s best if our next step is to go department by department and see what initial cuts we can make. You know, obvious ones that are clearly wasteful or costly oversights, and then go from there.”

“That sounds like a good idea.” She picks up their stack of departments and hands him half. “You can work on these and I’ll do the rest.”

He goes through the stack and looks up with a raised eyebrow. “Leslie, did you take the parks department on purpose.”

“Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t. What’s it to you?”

“I just think that it would be wise if I do that one. You might be a little biased.”

“And you won’t be? You already made it clear that you don’t think it’s important, so what’s to stop you from taking away all of their funding?”

“And what’s to stop you from from taking funds from another department and giving them to parks?”

She gives him that pinched, pouty face again and huffs. “Well, then we’re at a stalemate. I’ll rock, paper, scissors you for it.”

He laughs but she’s dead serious. “Oh, wow, you weren’t joking. Uhm, okay, I guess that’s fair.”

He wins best two out of three and despite her trying to up the odds, he eventually gets her to hand it over.

“Look, I’ll try to be as fair as possible, okay? We can work on these and then meet up again next week with what we have and go from there. I think this is a good place to stop for now.”

“Yeah, me too. I’m meeting Ann soon, anyway. See you next week?”

“Yup. Next week.”

She puts her bag over her shoulder and points a finger at him. “You take good care of my parks budget, you understand.” She’s smiling at him again, something she hasn’t really done in weeks, and he likes it. He can’t help but smile back.

“I’ll do my best. See ya.”

As much as he’s frustrated by her, there’s something that intrigues him, too. He’s never met anyone so driven, so passionate. Certainly not about a fictional town whose budget and crisis were all made up.

It’s refreshing in its own way. People in politics don’t think like that, unfortunately. There is no greater good in their minds, except maybe what’s the greater good for them. But Leslie...she really cares, and that’s something he admires about her, even if it could get her into trouble.

He goes back to his spreadsheets and works for a little while longer because he has nowhere else to be. He does his best to not think about how adorable Leslie looked as she walked away.

~~~~~

“Are you serious? This is the best you could do?”

She’s looking at Ben’s proposed cuts for the parks department--not surprisingly it’s the only one they didn’t agree on.

“Well, yeah. I even thought I was being a little gracious.”

“Gracious? You call cutting all but one after school program and putting the parks in “maintenance mode” is being gracious? _Closing_ the parks is being gracious?”

“It was either that or fire someone. I figured you’d prefer this over that.”

“Well, you thought wrong. I mean, no, I don’t want you to fire anyone, but we need more money. I know, how about you completely eliminate the library and give the money to parks.”

“I don’t know what it is with you and libraries, but we aren’t doing that. Most people like libraries.”

“Yeah, well, most people are stupid.”

“I don’t know what else you want me to do, Leslie!” he says with his hands in the air. “We’ve sucked almost every budget dry. There’s no money left.”

“Then we have to find some.”

“And how would we do that?”

“I don’t know. We’re not thinking smart enough. There’s something we can do. We just have to be creative. Something we’re missing.”

Ben leans back against his chair and groans. “I don’t know how creative we can be. This is a town on the brink of an epic financial crisis. Money isn’t going to just start appearing out of thin air.”

“Then we’ll come up with something that will make us money.”

“Leslie--”

“Stop, I know what you’re going to say, okay? Just give me some time. I’ll think of something, and if I don’t, we’ll continue with your plan.” She sticks her hand out. “Deal?”

It takes a while, and there's an intense internal debate on the pros and cons of what she's proposing, but in the end, she wins. “Fine, but it needs to be good.”

She’s already busy packing up her things. “Oh, don’t worry. It will be,” she throws over her shoulder and runs out. He thinks that if anybody could see something he's missing, it's her.

~~~~~

“Ben! I did it! I did it!” she yells across the student center, ignoring the several angry looks being thrown her way. She arrives breathless at the table but with a huge grin on her face. “I figured out what we can do.”

In her hand she’s holding an old poster and slaps it down on the table. “Pawnee Harvest Festival,” he reads slowly and looks up. “Okay, you’ve lost me. What am I looking at?”

She rolls her eyes and points at the poster. “That’s what we have to do. You said we needed an idea to make money, and this is it. See, in Pawnee, we have a Harvest Festival every year and it’s great and tons of people come out for it and it makes a lot of money for the city. We just have to set up our own!”

“Yeah, but setting something like this up is going to still cost the city a lot of money, and if it fails, we’re done for. Plus, how would we even be able to incorporate something like this into our project. It’s all conjecture at this point. We’d need datapoints of some kind to gauge its success, and there’s no way to do that.”

She still so excited that she grabs his face and squeezes his cheeks between her palms. “Oh Ben. Ye of little faith. I figured that part out, too. I talked to Dr. Iaresco already and he said that while it’s a little unorthodox, we might be able to use it. See, we can still gauge things like attendance and contributions by local business by polling people here. He said if we really wanted to spend the time on it, we can pretend as though people on campus and the local business in the area are a part of our town. We present them with our hypothetical situation, you know, give them our pitch and everything, and see what they answer. If they seem interested in attending, we mark them down as antending, and we won’t have to put up all that much money if we get the local businesses to help out.”

“Okay, but we’d still need to put up some money from our end. What happens if we go through all of this and it doesn't work.”

“Then we give up the parks department. We shut it down indefinitely to make up the cost.”

Well, shit. That actually seems like it could work. “And are you sure you want to try this? It’s gonna take a lot of our real time to go around to the different businesses in the area and see what they’re willing to hypothetically donate _and_ poll almost the entire campus for volunteers and attendees. Not to mention figuring out budgets for advertising and making arrangements for booths and rides and locations.”

“I’m sure. We’re already farther ahead in our project than anyone else, plus I helped organize our harvest festival in Pawnee for the last few years. I have all of that information already, so it’ll save us a lot of research time. What do you say, Ben? Please?”

She has her hands folded in front of her and good Lord, she’s actually pouting. But she’s kind of right. This could work.

“Yeah, alright. Let’s do it.”

She actually squeals--yes, squeals in excitement before surprising Ben with the biggest, tightest hug he’s received in...well, a really long time. He’s not ready for it, but eventually puts his arms around her and squeezes back because her enthusiasm is contagious. Plus, she’s really soft and smells nice and it feels really, really good.

He’s actually disappointed when she pulls away, but she’s looking up at him with that huge smile and flushed cheeks and he figures that if he leaned forward just a little bit he could--

Whoa, wait, what? No, he did _not_ just think about kissing Leslie. Not in a million years. She was his classmate and project partner and barely even a friend. No way.

Except fuck, yes way. She barely tolerates him at this point, and he wants to personally know what flavor chapstick she’s wearing. He'd bet anything it was cherry.

He’s so screwed.

“This is amazing. You’ll see. We’ll make it work and get a great grade and prove to everyone that we know what we’re doing.”

“It’s still just a project, you know,” he teases, but it doesn’t deter her one bit.

“I know, but it’s still something important to us. We’re proving something to ourselves, too, and maybe that’s enough.”

She laughs again before giving him another quick hug. “Okay, so there’s a lot to do. Uhm, I’ll compile all that I have on the harvest festival, the pricing info and checklists for everything, and then maybe start working on my pitch for the different business owners and draw up a flyer to have on me when I canvass the campus.You keep crunching those numbers, okay?”

He nods and smiles back, giving her two thumbs up. Two thumbs up? Really? That’s the best he can do?

But she doesn’t seem to think anything of it because her thumbs are soon high in the air as she walks backwards towards the door.

“Yeah, I’ll, uh, keep, you know, crunching away. That’s why they call me Captain Crunch.”

Even though she laughs, he still wants to crawl into a hole because now he’s nervous and when he’s nervous he says the stupidest shit. First the thumbs up and now _that_?

“Aye, aye, Cap’n” she says and actually salutes before turning around and sprinting to the door.

Yup, it’s official. He’s totally screwed.

~~~~~

He’s wondering if it’s his imagination or if she really is sitting closer to him than normal today. She doesn’t hate him anymore, that much is true, which is great, but he’s worried he’s reading more into things than he should.

So far their project is going surprisingly well. They’re no where near done getting the sampling size they need to have accurate data points to predict the success of the festival, but his spreadsheets are impeccable, and Leslie’s sales pitch and sample flyers are perfect. She even managed to reach out to a lot of local businesses while she was sick with the flu.

She‘s fucking awesome.

“Okay, so, I’ve got an updated list of volunteers here. Ann was able to reach out to some people in her nursing program and they thought it was a cool idea and said they’d volunteer for something like that, so it looks like we have the first aid tent covered. We’ve got some volunteers for the shooting gallery from the archery club, and my friend Andy has a band for some live entertainment. And despite your _terrible_ behavior at the campus security office, they agreed to patrol the event for free.”

“Yeah, yeah, when are you going to let that part go?”

“Uhm, how about never? And calzones, Ben? Really? It’s just pizza that’s harder to eat. No one likes them. But yes, even though you almost ruined everything for us with your nonsense calzone talk, that’s another thing we don’t have to worry about.”

She’s looking over his shoulder at the spreadsheets on his computer, and he wonders for the thousandth time if that’s perfume or she actually smells that sweet on her own. With all the sugar he’s seen her consume, he honestly wouldn’t be surprised.

“That’s awesome. I had an idea, too. So a buddy of mine has a radio show on the college station, and I was thinking that I could get the numbers of about how many listeners they have and extrapolate roughly how many people we could reach if we ran an ad on the radio, or did some live advertising on one of their shows.”

Her eyes widen and she nods. “Oh, that’s good. And maybe do the same thing for the college tv station. There’s that kind of weird host of I.U. Today that sometimes interviews people on her show. That could be an option, too.”

He adds another tab on his spreadsheet to input the radio and television numbers. “This’ll really be great and widen our reach a lot.”

“Definitely.”

Her knee brushes his leg and he freezes.

“Uhm, yeah,” he croaks before clearing his throat, “it looks like we’re right on track. If we keep it up, we just might make this work out.”

“Oh we are so doing this. No question. Between my creative genius and awesome people skills and your robot like number skills, we can’t be beat.”

He turns his head and looks at her with a grin. “Did you just call me a robot? Should I be offended?”

“Nope, not at all,” she giggles. “You’re my personal numbers robot. It’s a good thing. I couldn’t have done all of that stuff by myself. I know I kind of said the exact opposite in the beginning, but we make a good team.”

He’s smiling at her again. He’s not sure if he ever really stopped.

“Yeah, we do, don’t we?”

He holds up his hand and she gives him a high five.

“Alright,” she says as she stands and starts gathering her folders and binders, “I’ve got to go work on some homework. See you in class tomorrow?”

“Yup, definitely.”

She starts walking away before she stops and turns on her heel. “Oh! I almost forgot. What are you doing Friday?”

“This Friday? Well I was planning on having a hot date with my couch, some chicken parm, and my Bladerunner DVD, but I think I can reschedule. Why? Did you want to go over the project some more?”

“No actually. Uh, see, my friend April is turning 21 and a bunch of us were going to go out to celebrate. And I was hoping you’d come. You know, hang out outside of class or working on the project. I mean you don’t have to come if you don’t want to but I’d really like it if you would and I know my friends want to meet you since they _are_ fake volunteering for our harvest festival and everything.”

If Ben didn’t know any better, he’d say she’s a little nervous. She’s gripping at the straps of her bag super tightly and biting her lip. He thinks her neck is getting a little flushed and even though he hates clubs, he wants nothing more than to spend more time with her. Especially if her nervousness is any indication that she wants to spend more time with him, too.

“Uh, yeah, I’d love to. Thanks.”

She lets out a huge breath and smiles. “Awesome! I’ll text you the info. See you tomorrow.”

He waves as she walks away and thinks that Friday can’t come fast enough.

~~~~~

He walks into the club and the music is way too loud, but he sucks it up. He scans the room looking for her now familiar blonde head and finds her and a few others in a booth in the corner, Leslie waving at him wildly.

“Beeeeeeeen,” she draws out and he can already tell she’s hammered. “You came! But you’re late and you’re already,” she looks down and counts her fingers before holding all five up, “four shots behind _plus_ a few bottles of beer.”

He laughs because she’s just so damn cute right now all adorable and flushed, but when she scoots past the brunette next to her and gets out of the booth, Ben nearly chokes.

He always knew she was pretty and had a petite body, but shit, he had no clue until right now when she’s standing in front of him in a tight, little black dress and the hottest pair of “fuck me” pumps he’s ever seen.

She casually swings her arm around his shoulder and faces the table. “Everyone, this is Ben. Ben, this beautiful goddess here is my very best friend, Ann Perkins, that guy there is Andy, and the girl sitting on his lap and sucking on his face is April, the birthday girl.”

He tries to wave at the pair, but they don't  bother to once pull their mouths apart during the entire introduction.

“Tom’s around here somewhere with Jean-Ralphio but I have no idea where.”

Ann slides next to April and Andy so he and Leslie could sit down in the booth. “It’s nice to finally meet you, Ann,” he yells over the music. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Ann leans over and smiles at him. “It’s nice to meet you, too. I’ve heard a lot about you from Leslie, too.” She looks at him in the low light and squints her eyes. “Wait, have we met before? You look really familiar.”

“I don’t think so.”

Ann frowns and continues to stare. “Man, I swear I’ve seen you somewhere. You look really familiar.”

“Maybe he just has one of those faces,” Leslie cuts in quickly and shoots Ann a look, but that only makes Ann’s eyes go wide.

“Oh my God! Now I recognize you. Back in high school, Leslie used to have you picture on her wa-”

Leslie slaps her hand over Ann’s mouth. “Don’t listen to her. She’s drunk and has no idea what she’s talking about.”

Ann’s eyes crinkle like she’s laughing behind Leslie’s hand.

“Okay, then” Ben says, amused, “I’m gonna leave you two to sort out whatever that was, and go grab a beer. You want anything?”

Ann shakes her head, her mouth still covered, but Leslie smiles and nods. “Yeah, another beer, please. And then later you’re doing a shot with me, okay?”

He stands up and makes his way over to the bar and puts in his order. He turns back to the table, and if he didn’t know better, it looks like Leslie and Ann are watching him and giggling. They were either making fun of him or complimenting him.

He really hoped it was the latter.

“One beer for the lady, and two beers for me so I can start catching up,” he says when he comes back a few minutes later.

“Yay!” Leslie cheers and takes a sip of her drink, stopping when the song changes. “Oh my God, I love this song.” She tugs on his arm. “Ben, come dance with me, please?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I’m not much of a dancer.”

“Pleeeeeaaaaase.”

She’s pouting again, and he swears she knows what she’s doing because he can never resist that pout.

“Fine, but if I embarrass us, I warned you.”

Two hours later, he’s suitably buzzed and sweaty from all of the dancing, and surprised that he’s actually enjoying himself. Not to mention pleased that Leslie seems to be stuck on having him as her dancing partner. He’s never been this close to her before, her body pressed up against him in that little black dress, and he’s been half hard almost the whole night.

After the next song ends, Leslie rests most of her body weight against him and breathes out heavily. “Wow, that last one made me tired.”

“I know. Me too, actually.”

She looks up at him and gives him a lazy, drunken but happy smile. “So, are you enjoying yourself?”

“I am actually. Thanks for inviting me.”

“Of course. I’m really happy that you’re here.”

His lips quirk. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

She takes his hand and starts leading them away from the dance floor, but instead of going to the booth, she leads him towards the bathrooms.

There’s a small alcove at the end of the hall and she leans her back against the wall, pulling him so close to her she _has_ to feel how hard she makes him.

“I am really happy that you’re here, you know,” she says in a low, husky whisper. “Because I’ve been wanting to tell you something for a really long time, and it just never seemed right, but I think it’s right now, don’t you?”

He can’t seem to find his voice so he just nods quickly.

“I like you,” she says as she plays with the top buttons of his shirt. “I really, _really_ like you and kind of want you to kiss me right now.” She runs her thumb across his bottom lip. “Is that something you want? Do you want to kiss me as much as I want you to?”

Without thinking, he grips her hips and slants his mouth over hers in a hot, wet kiss that’s tongues and teeth and almost two months worth of pent up sexual tension. She groans into his mouth, and _fuck_ , she tastes so damn sweet and perfect and he was right, she wears cherry chapstick.

Her hands slide up his chest and neck before burying themselves in his hair, and she tugs on it as she tries to bring her mouth even closer to his. At some point, their hips start grinding against one another and he doesn't see why he shouldn’t hoist her up and fuck her against this wall in some seedy college club.

There’s probably a million good reasons, but he can’t think of any.

They pull away to catch their breath, and he’s never seen a sexier sight than Leslie Knope with mussed hair and lips wet and swollen from his kisses.

A drunk Leslie Knope. _Fuck._

“You’re drunk,” he says flatly.

“So are you.”

“Yeah, but are we doing this because you’re drunk and I really try to not have sex with drunk girls and--”

“I’ve been wanting you to kiss me like that for a very long time. Being drunk has nothing to do with it. This was just the only excuse I could think of to see you outside of class or working on the project.”

“That’s good. Because I really like you, too.” He leans in to kiss her again, but she stops him with a hand on his chest.

“But you’re right, though. We shouldn’t have sex.”

He tries not to look upset. “Oh, yes, right, no-”

“No, wait,” she closes her eyes and sighs. “I just meant that we shouldn’t have sex like right now. Tonight. Because drunk sex isn’t usually good sex and I have to get up early tomorrow and do a lot of stuff, and when I sleep with you, I want to enjoy it.”

He swallows hard and bites back another moan.

“So, what are you doing Saturday night and Sunday?” she asks him as her finger runs up and down his collarbone.

“Uhm, n-nothing. Nothing.”

“Good. My roommate is away for the weekend and the RA is really lax about the “no boys staying overnight” rule. Stop by at six and bring a change of clothes...if you think you’ll need them.”

She kisses him one more time before walking away, leaving him with a goofy smile on his face and a massive hardon.

That night when he jerks off in the shower, he does it finally knowing what Leslie tastes like.

~~~~~

Her fingers are in his hair and she’s panting his name over and over again.

Every damn inch of her tastes like sugar. Her lips, her neck, her breasts, her belly button.

Her pussy.

And right now he’s eating her out like he’s on death row and she’s his last meal, and if that were ever the case, he’d die a happy man.

He was in Leslie Knope’s room, on her bed, his tongue inside of her causing her to make every single one of those sighs and moans.

Did he also mention how beautiful she is? Because every single part of her is perfect and begged to be kissed the second her clothes were off.

He’s sucking her clit into his mouth and pumping two, then three fingers inside of her, and she’s barely able to contain herself before she finally comes, her back arching off of the bed and he can feel her spasm around his fingers.

He peppers her hips and thighs with tiny kisses as she comes down, and he hardly has time to suck his fingers dry before she’s pushing him against the mattress and taking him into her mouth.

God, if her mouth feels like this, he can’t even imagine what it’ll be like inside of her.

Her tongue traces over the large vein running along the side of his cock and circles the tip, before she takes him back in and sucks. It’s like she knows everything he wants without having to tell her. She knows just how much to hollow her cheeks, knows just now tight to grip the base of him that doesn’t fit in her mouth, knows that when he grips her hair a little too tightly, it's because he’s too close and she releases him.

She reaches over to her nightstand and pulls out the condom, rolling it onto him before straddling his hips.

She knows what she wants and she’s not afraid to take it, and he’d be damned if he didn’t love that about her.

His jaw drops open and he lets out a strangled gasp as she sinks down on him, and he was right. Being inside of her was the best thing he’s ever experienced in his miserable, pathetic life.

She rode him with reckless abandon, her head thrown back, her eyes closed, and her breasts bouncing in perfect rhythm. He puts one hand on her hip, keeping her steady as the other squeezes her breast.

He finds the right moment to snap his hips and her breath hitches as she falls forward, her chest flush against his.

He wraps both arms tightly around her back puts his feet flat on the mattress so he can pound into her with every ounce of strength he has left.

Her hands are clutching at anything they can reach, and she’s begging him to fuck her harder.

He flips them over and puts one leg high on his shoulder and pushes into her again, this time holding nothing back. The whole bed is shaking, and when his thumb makes tight, fast circles on her clit, she screams his name and comes again.

It doesn’t take much after that for him to follow after her, and he comes with a strangled cry and collapses beside her.

She’s hot and sweaty and absolutely gorgeous. The thoroughly fucked look suits her well.

“Oh my God, Ben. That was…”

“Yeah.” He kisses her neck and shoulder. “I’m so glad we didn’t do that drunk. That’s something I want to remember for as long as I live.”

He kisses her again, something he’s pretty sure he could do forever and never get tired of it, before rolling away to throw out the condom.

She’s a cuddler, he realizes once he slides back into bed with her and she immediately curls around him. Not that he’s complaining about that either. He’s just learning so many new things about her. Really, really great things.

Things like she’s a great kisser, gives amazing head, and damn if she just didn’t give him the best sex of his life.

“We need to do that again.”

He smirks. “Okay, give me a few minutes.”

“That’s not what I meant,” she giggles and slaps his arm, “although, yes, that’s good. Let’s do that, too. I just meant, we should do this a lot more. In the future. If you want.”

“Oh, I definitely want. And, if you want, I’d like to do more than just this. I want to do this _and_ go out together and do things and get to know each other better.”

“You mean date?”

He nods. “Yeah. Date.”

“Okay, let’s do that, too.”

He rolls over her and kisses her again, fumbling around the night stand for another condom.

Turns out he didn't need that extra change of clothes after all.

~~~~~

The best part of having Leslie Knope as your girlfriend _and_ project partner is that you can work on said project while said girlfriend was naked in bed with you.

It’s a win-win for everyone involved.

Sure it’s a little distracting at times, but that’s another great thing of having Leslie Knope as your girlfriend, she’s great at making sure whatever works needs to get done gets done. So while he might distract her every now and then with a few well placed nips on her skin, she stays focused.

The last few weeks had been hard for a multitude of reasons. The first was doing all of the work they had to do for the project. Talking to the different business and canvassing the campus took hours upon hours, and even though they were getting a decent amount of positive answers, they were still cutting it close as far as required vendor support and attendance.

Not to mention that the end of the semester meant a lot of last minute work for his other classes, and studying for finals is the last thing he wants to do if he’s in the same room as Leslie.

Plus, they both were apart for the first time over Thanksgiving break, and it sucked. Really sucked. He hated being back home almost as much as everyone there hated having him back. He was stuck having to spend the holiday between his parents’ houses where all the one did was complain about the other. The only positive thing was that he got to see his siblings again, especially his sister. He was worried about her the most after he left for school and she had to deal with the aftermath of his failure, but she’s a tough kid.

But as much as he loves his sister, it was a relief to come back to school and see Leslie again. They still talked everyday when they were apart, but it wasn’t the same, and he spent quite a long time letting her know just how much he missed her.

But today is a work day. Leslie was very adamant about that, and yes naked cuddling is okay, but their project _had_ to be finished before they fooled around.

Talk about incentive.

Leslie works on writing the report and he’s focused on inputting all of their numbers and seeing where they stand. He scrunches his nose as he types in the last few figures and clicks the mouse to run the algorithm he made to calculate how all of this contributed to the overall cost of the festival, and what profit, if any, they’d expect to make.

They are the longest seconds of his life and he’s tapping his finger against the mouse out of nervous habit.

Leslie looks over at him and her eyes go wide. “Is it running.”

“Yup, it’s going. We’ll know any second now.”

“Wow, this is kind of terrifying but also awesomely exciting.”

“I think I’m still stuck in the terrifying phase, babe.”

She kisses his shoulder. “Would you stop. Everything’ll be fine. I know it. We both worked really hard and did everything right. I have faith in us, okay?”

She gives him a warm smile and he can’t help but kiss her because he can do that whenever he wants now.

When it stops running, a new tab appears on the screen. “Okay, so if I click this, the results will pop up and give us a breakdown of all of the costs and how much the festival is projected to make and what the difference or surplus is. You ready?”

“Yup, I’m ready.”

He tries not to cringe as he opens up the new tab, and the results flash before his eyes.

He stares at it for a while and doesn’t say anything. He can’t believe it. After all of that hard work, after _everything_ ….

“What? What is it, Ben? I don’t have any idea what any of that means. Okay, you’re starting to scare me a bit. Is it bad?”

He shakes his head and a slow smile spreads on his face. “No. It’s good. It’s really good. Based on everything, even when we predict on the lower end of the spectrum, we’re in a surplus. We have enough to cover the cost of the festival several times over. And not just for parks, either. The fundraiser idea for the schools added to their budget, there was an increase in the use of public transportation those days that lead to a decent bit of cash flowing in there, and a few more in other departments. We did it, Leslie.”

“We did? Oh my God, we did it!” she throws herself into his arms and he squeezes her tightly. He didn’t expect to be this happy, but it almost feels like this is real, like they spent the last few months working on the real thing.

“This is amazing,” she says in awe. “ _We’re_ amazing. I knew we could do it.”

“Now we just have to hope that Dr. Iaresco thinks so, too.”

“I don’t see why he wouldn't. We did everything he asked for and _then_ some. We didn’t just balance the budget, but we started to create a surplus. It’s incredible. Now, I just have to add this last bit to our report and summarize our results and we’re done.”

“Ugh, thank God. As grateful as I am to this class and this project for bringing us together, I can’t wait until it’s over.”

“You’re just saying that because I won’t have sex with you until we finish it.”

He laughs and starts consolidating the spreadsheets so he can attach them to their report. “Yeah, well, that’s as good of a reason as any if you ask me.”

“Don’t worry. All in good time. Trust me. It’ll be well worth the wait.”

~~~~~

Ben didn’t really have time to stress over the project after they turned it in. That week was so packed with other papers and final exams, he barely had time to miss Leslie, let alone worry about his grade.

But once the other exams are complete, he receives the email from their professor that their reports were graded and they could pick them up at his office. He ended the note saying that he was “interested in speaking with them” and neither he nor Leslie were sure if that was a good thing.

So now they walk hand in hand down the hall towards Dr. Iaresco’s office and knock on the door.

“Ah, yes, Ben and Leslie, come in, come in please. I wanted to talk to you about your project before I just handed it back to you, if that’s alright.”

The two sit down in the chairs across from Dr. Iaresco’s desk and nod, waiting to find out once and for all if they were successful or just flunked out of a class because they tried to actually make a difference in this fictional town that may or may not have feelings.

“Now, when Leslie came to me with her idea I was a bit shocked, not to mention skeptical. No one had ever attempted that before, and I don’t think many will in the future, either. But I must say that after looking over your report, I’m very pleasantly surprised. You not only made it work, but you made it work well. You both went above and beyond the scope of the assignment, not only applying the principles you learned in class, but also using your own creativity to not just put a band-aid on the problem, but really try to fix it.

“It’s obvious how much time and effort you put into it, and I just wanted to tell you well done in person. Your report was probably the best one I’ve ever seen, and I must say those spreadsheet were quite impressive. Did you write that algorithm yourself?”

“Uhm, I did, yes,” Ben says and he catches Leslie beaming with pride next to him.

“Very well done. And above all, I think you both learned a lot from one another about compromise and what it takes to really work in government. We need more people like the both of you to balance each other out. It’s important to be fiscally responsible but without forgetting about the services that the government provides that are more important than we all realize. Again, excellent work, you two, and if that’s your desire, I can see both of you having excellent futures within the government. Don’t hesitate to reach out to me should you need guidance or any good references.”

He grins and hands them back their report, the both of them smiling politely and saying their thanks.

When the door shuts behind them, they just stare at one another in disbelief.

“Wow. Did that just happen?” Ben asks.

“Yeah, I think it did.”

Leslie is the first one to break, smiling wide and flinging herself into Ben’s arms.

He laughs and spins her around a few times before setting her back down on the ground. “We really did it.”

“Yeah, we sure did.”

He isn’t thinking about how in just three days, he’ll be going back home to Minnesota and she to Pawnee, and it’ll be weeks until they see each other in person again, or about how in just a few months, they’ll be graduating and moving on to the next phase in their lives and there’s no guarantee that their relationship will survive it.

He only cares about the paper in his hands and the girl in his arms.

And while it might seem a bit stupid to anyone else, it means something to them. This project, this seemingly insignificant little project that changed their lives. It brought two people together who might have never met otherwise. It made them not only step outside of their comfort zone, but helped them learn invaluable lessons that they’d carry with them for years to come. It was all the proof they needed to reassure not everyone else, but themselves that they were on the right track.

It won’t be last collaboration between the two of them, not by a long shot, but it would always be the one that started it all.

And to think, it was all because of an empty seat.

 


End file.
